Unlocking Empowered, Self-Sufficient Teams: A Deep Dive into 'First Team' Strategies w/ Monica Bajaj #164

This is a special episode from our show “Engineering Founders” - Jon Perl & Scott Wilson share the origin story of QA Wolf & deconstruct their best practices (and what to avoid) for early-stage cold outreach, how to add value to your cold email communications, and why experimenting with your cold outreach is important to early sales! We also dive in to the story behind QA Wolf’s strategic move to incorporate services into their business strategy & tangible ways to add accountability measures that will help drive growth in the early days of your company. Check out Engineering Founders - https://hubs.la/Q02tq5ym0ABOUT JON PERLJon Perl is the co-founder and CEO of QA Wolf, a startup building the QA solution every engineering leader wishes for. Prior to QA Wolf, Perl led engineering teams in the healthcare and home services space, where he learned firsthand how difficult automated regression testing can be — and how critical it is for teams to have. His interest in software engineering comes from an overarching desire to eliminate boring, repetitive tasks and give people their time back. He has a dog named Finn and enjoys hiking."Your goal is simply to book a meeting. You're not trying to close a deal through one email. It's like, 'How can I just get on the phone with somebody?' That's the goal.”- Jon Perl   ABOUT SCOTT WILSONAs co-founder and head of growth at QA Wolf, Scott Wilson is trying to upend 20+ years of stagnation in the QA industry. Before this he launched the marketing efforts at Wyze and helped acquire 6 million paying customers. If he’s not working, you might find him backpacking with Frank the dog, or learning a new illusion."It's not referencing the weather in Seattle or that you got promoted. Personalization is being contextually relevant to the person. This is how your mind should be thinking. It's like, 'I saw you're a hundred person company with nine engineers on your team and no QA engineers. You're probably going through this and here's a solution for it.'”- Scott Wilson   We now have 10 local communities of engineering leaders hosting in-person meetups all over the world!Local communities are led by eng leaders just like you, who wanted to create a place to connect, share insights & tackle critical challenges in the job.New York City, Boston, Chicago, Seattle, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, London, Amsterdam, and Toronto in-person events are happening now!We’re launching local events all the time - get involved at elc.community!SHOW NOTES:The origin story of QA Wolf & the desire to build an automated QA system (2:08)What got Scott excited about joining the QA Wolf founding team (7:14)Scott’s experience as the non-technical cofounder on the team (9:13)Learn enough to be dangerous & be willing to persist as a founder (10:38)The approach of paying people you can learn from & its impact on QA Wolf (14:11)Lessons learned about cold emailing & effective strategies to implement (17:12)Cold emailing strategies that don’t work (21:00)How to add value to email communication & incorporate experimentation (22:24)Why they shifted the focus from coding to sales / outreach / identifying solutions (26:23)Make accountability mechanisms a key component of early-stage teams (29:09)The false signal of free users & expanding product into services (30:45)Identifying a gap in the business & being open-minded to new ideas (33:20)What the initial testing for QA Wolf’s services approach looked like (35:22)Jon & Scott’s perspective on dealing w/ investors in the automated services space (38:31)Rapid fire questions (44:01)LINKS AND RESOURCES$100M Offers: How To Make Offers So Good People Feel Stupid Saying NoHow to Hire a Product-Led Sales Leader – at Every StageThis episode wouldn’t have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan’s also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/

Mike Hanley, Chief Security Officer and SVP of Engineering @ GitHub, joins us to discuss how GitHub has successfully combined its engineering & security orgs and shares recommendations for how other orgs can pivot to this model. We cover why it’s so important for eng orgs to collaborate with security early on in the product development cycle and tips for educating your engineers on security best practices. We also discuss how the rise of AI tools / usage is changing how companies need to think about & practice security, why AI is providing opportunities for increased safety & security within product development, and strategies for encouraging your org to adopt AI tooling within engineering, security, and beyond.ABOUT MIKE HANLEYMike Hanley is the Chief Security Officer and SVP of Engineering at GitHub. Prior to GitHub, Mike was the Vice President of Security at Duo Security, where he built and led the security research, development, and operations functions. After Duo’s acquisition by Cisco for $2.35 billion in 2018, Mike led the transformation of Cisco’s cloud security framework and later served as CISO for the company. Mike also spent several years at CERT/CC as a Senior Member of the Technical Staff and security researcher focused on applied R&D programs for the US Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community.When he’s not talking about security at GitHub, Mike can be found enjoying Ann Arbor, MI with his wife and eight kids."The idea that the security team is walled off or separate or not really connected, not just to engineering but the entirety of the business, you really can't have that. If you think about the pace of modern development, things are moving so quickly. It's so driven by software. The idea that you're like, ‘Hey, I got to walk down the hall and check in with somebody from security who has no idea what's going on in my roadmap, who has no idea what my day to day experience is living in engineering...’ That just doesn't work!”- Mike Hanley   We now have 10 local communities of engineering leaders hosting in-person meetups all over the world!Local communities are led by eng leaders just like you, who wanted to create a place to connect, share insights & tackle critical challenges in the job.New York City, Boston, Chicago, Seattle, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, London, Amsterdam, and Toronto in-person events are happening now!We’re launching local events all the time - get involved at elc.community!SHOW NOTES:GitHub’s convergence of the eng & security orgs (2:33)Benefits of combining engineering & security org mandates (4:46)How the security team is involved with the internal product dev lifecycle (8:05)The downsides of engaging your security team as an afterthought (10:46)What an early-stage yes/and product conversation looks like (12:48)Examples of educating your eng team on security best practices (17:17)Expanding two-factor authentication externally (19:29)Stewarding security as a responsibility & value (21:59)Security & safety implications for orgs using / building AI tools (23:44)Why the rise of AI is a great time for eng / security collaboration (27:09)How to leverage security best practices using AI tools (29:53)Mike’s view that AI will create more opportunities & improve structural tech (32:14)Frameworks for getting to “yes” when it comes to adopting AI tooling (35:15)AI-powered tools GitHub is using to change workflows outside of eng & security (39:06)Considerations pivoting toward combining eng & security functions (40:35)Rapid fire questions (42:25)LINKS AND RESOURCESWhy Johnny Can’t Encrypt - Alma Whitten And J. D. Tygar’s argument that effective security requires a different usability standard that is not achievable through the user interface techniques commonly found in consumer software.The Space Trilogy - C.S. Lewis believed that popular science was the new mythology of his age, and in The Space Trilogy he ransacks the uncharted territory of space and makes that mythology the medium of his spiritual imagination.The Works of Peter DruckerThis episode wouldn’t have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan’s also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/

In this episode, we are talking about adaptability in engineering orgs, building out impactful management systems, and navigating complex transitions as eng leaders with Cosmin Nicolaescu, CTO @ Brex. He shares how his experience moving from Romania to the United States taught him vital lessons in adaptability that he has applied throughout his eng leadership career. We also discuss how to define what success as a manager looks like, Cosmin’s approach to putting out fires (and deciding which ones to prioritize), why you should restructure your meetings to focus on output vs. review, and how to implement a succession plan.ABOUT COSMIN NICOLAESCUCosmin (@getCos) leads engineering at Brex, building financial technology to accelerate entrepreneurs. Prior to Brex, he was at Stripe, leading financial infrastructure teams, building Stripe Terminal, and establishing engineering teams globally. His career started at Microsoft, launching Azure and Office365."How are you actually changing the trajectory of something. If the person wasn't there, would things have come out differently? If the person jumped in on something, did that meaningfully change the trajectory of that particular project? The answer should be yes and I think that is a good proxy for, as a manager, are you actually leading teams, people, projects, initiatives, and moving the company forward or are you just operating the machinery?”- Cosmin Nicolaescu   We now have 10 local communities of engineering leaders hosting in-person meetups all over the world!Local communities are led by eng leaders just like you, who wanted to create a place to connect, share insights & tackle critical challenges in the job.New York City, Boston, Chicago, Seattle, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, London, Amsterdam, and Toronto in-person events are happening now!We’re launching local events all the time - get involved at elc.community!SHOW NOTES:How Cosmin's transition to the U.S. set the foundation for his approach to adaptability (2:40)Learn to accept what you can & cannot control as an eng leader (5:00)Frameworks for identifying / understanding what execs spend their time on (7:13)Navigating the transition from Microsoft to Stripe (9:12)Building out a successful & impactful management organization (12:08)In-demand qualities of managers during the shift to flatters orgs (15:00)Prioritizing which fires to focus on & willingness to delegate (16:39)Cosmin’s approach to triaging fires @ Brex (18:31)Restructure meetings for output rather than review (21:52)Approaches for adapting to the current macroeconomic environment (25:36)Roles that contributed to successful distributed hiring (29:09)Necessary elements that need to exist for an unconventional transition (31:28)Recommendations for developing & executing a succession plan (34:44)Rapid fire questions (37:30)LINKS AND RESOURCESOutlive: The Science and Art of Longevity - Wouldn’t you like to live longer? And better? In this operating manual for longevity, Dr. Peter Attia draws on the latest science to deliver innovative nutritional interventions, techniques for optimizing exercise and sleep, and tools for addressing emotional and mental health.Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future - If you want to build a better future, you must believe in secrets. The great secret of our time is that there are still uncharted frontiers to explore and new inventions to create. In Zero to One, legendary entrepreneur and investor Peter Thiel shows how we can find singular ways to create those new things.Hit Refresh: The Quest to Rediscover Microsoft's Soul and Imagine a Better Future for Everyone - As told by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Hit Refresh is the story of corporate change and reinvention as well as the story of Nadella’s personal journey, one that is taking place today inside a storied technology company, and one that is coming in all of our lives as intelligent machines become more ambient and more ubiquitous.Generations: The Real Differences Between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers, and Silents―and What They Mean for America's Future - Professor of psychology Jean Twenge does a deep dive into a treasure trove of long-running, government-funded surveys and databases to answer these questions. Are we truly defined by major historical events, such as the Great Depression for the Silents and September 11 for Millennials? Or, as Twenge argues, is it the rapid evolution of technology that differentiates the generations?This episode wouldn’t have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan’s also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/

Have you ever wondered what to do in the “third act” of your career & beyond when it comes to opportunities outside traditional eng leadership / operational roles? In this episode, Nidhi Gupta, CEO & Co-Founder @ SheTO, joins us to share her perspectives on identifying new pathways, taking time for self-discovery, and deciding which career opportunity you’re most passionate about. She defines what the “third act” of your career is & explains roles, such as fractional roles, coaching, serving on boards, advising, etc. Plus Nidhi explains how her passion for supporting women in CTO roles led her to found SheTO, how to give yourself permission to explore new paths, and validate your next steps.ABOUT NIDHI GUPTANidhi (@NidhiGuptaSF) is the CEO and Co-Founder of SheTO, a private community for women and non-binary engineers and engineering leaders. Less than 9% of engineering executive roles are held by women. SheTO is working on changing that.Prior to founding SheTO, Nidhi was an accomplished engineering and product executive who has built, scaled, and transformed companies. She has extensive expertise in strategy, R&D, business development, and operations. She has led various Marketplaces and SaaS businesses. As an Engineering and Product leader, she is passionate about building and growing thriving operational organizations that deliver world-class products at scale.Prior to founding SheTO, Nidhi was the Chief Technology & Product Officer at Hired, Upwork and Ning."If you had all the free time on the planet and didn't have to worry about anything, what do you think you would do? Every single night I would go to bed and the next morning I woke up more excited solving for this 9% number than I was about my job and that told me that that's really something that I'm more passionate about so literally after I came back from vacation, I went and talked to my CEO and I quit my job.”- Nidhi Gupta   We now have 10 local communities of engineering leaders hosting in-person meetups all over the world!Local communities are led by eng leaders just like you, who wanted to create a place to connect, share insights & tackle critical challenges in the job.New York City, Boston, Chicago, Seattle, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, London, Amsterdam, and Toronto in-person events are happening now!We’re launching local events all the time - get involved at elc.community!SHOW NOTES:Defining “the third act” & exploring career paths beyond operational roles (3:24)What it was like for Nidhi to open herself up to new opportunities (6:09)How Nidhi’s passions influenced her to start SheTO (8:01)Additional consideration for & recommendations to inspire self-discovery (11:21)Why it’s important to take a break & pursue additional interests (13:06)Things that kept Nidhi honest with herself through the discovery process (14:51)Potential pathways to nontraditional eng leader roles (19:04)Ruling out particular pathways after the discovery phase (20:47)How Nidhi identified her happiness & transitioned into her role with SheTO (23:10)Strategies validating your assumptions & the journey of SheTO (25:43)SheTO’s pivot during COVID (28:39)What it looks like to give yourself permission to explore (31:05)Set goalposts & measurements for yourself (34:43)Rapid fire questions (35:16)LINKS AND RESOURCESThird Act with Liz Tinkham - Your first act is school, your second act is work, but have you thought about what you’re going to do in your third act? Join host Liz Tinkham, a former Accenture Senior Managing Director, as she talks to guests who are happily “pretired” – using their time, treasure, and talent to pursue their purpose and passion in the third act of their life.The Alex Cross series - A crime, mystery, and thriller novel series written by James Patterson. The protagonist of the series is Alex Cross, an African-American Metropolitan Police Department detective and father who counters threats to his family and the city of Washington, D.C.This episode wouldn’t have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan’s also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/

We’re featuring another popular session from ELC Annual 2023 – welcome to “Healthy Tension: GTM & Product/Eng Collaboration at Hundreds of Millions ARR Scale” with Tido Carriero, (Co-Founder @ Koala and Former VPE @ Segment) and Joe Morrissey (General Partner @ a16z & Former CRO @ Segment)! Tido & Joe share stories from the beginning of their partnership at Segment, including their first cross-functional annual planning meeting. They highlight lessons learned from those early days and how others can implement annual planning session frameworks to develop value drivers for their org in order to better serve customers & create products with value. Joe & Tido also cover how to build a healthy, trusting relationship between product & eng when it comes to building / executing a successful GTM strategy.ABOUT TIDO CARREIROTido is the Co-Founder & CEO of Koala. Prior to Koala, he led the Product & Engineering team at Segment from less than $5M in ARR to their $3.2B acquisition by Twilio.“I had been at Segment for four years. The big unlock for me and I think what I needed to lean into more in retrospect from a trust perspective was that Joe was really going to be a different kind of go to market partner. We had zoomed way out. We had looked at a multi-year strategy, not just a list of 25 features and ordering them quarter by quarter by quarter.”- Tido Carriero   ABOUT JOE MORRISSEYJoe Morrissey is a general partner on the Growth investing team at Andreessen Horowitz, focused on enterprise technology companies. Prior to joining a16z, Joe was chief revenue officer at Segment, where he scaled revenues to upwards of $200M ARR in advance of the company’s $3.2B acquisition by Twilio. Before Segment, he was was the EMEA vice president and general manager for three open source software companies: Hortonworks, which combined with Cloudera in a $5.2B merger in 2019; MongoDB, which went public in 2017; and MySQL, which was acquired by Sun Microsystems for $1B in 2008. Joe holds a bachelor’s degree in business studies from the University of Limerick, Ireland. He currently serves on the boards of Neon Inc., and Hopsworks AB and lives in Menlo Park with his wife and two kids."You've got to go through this tension and I think one of the things that can happen is you avoid the tension, you avoid the conflict, you say yes to things that maybe you're not comfortable with both on the product and on the go to market side then the plan goes wrong, right? So I really think like the tension is the critical thing and that the struggle is the critical thing and that's where the learning is.”- Joe Morrissey   We now have 10 local communities of engineering leaders hosting in-person meetups all over the world!Local communities are led by eng leaders just like you, who wanted to create a place to connect, share insights & tackle critical challenges in the job.New York City, Boston, Chicago, Seattle, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, London, Amsterdam, and Toronto in-person events are happening now!We’re launching local events all the time - get involved at elc.community!SHOW NOTES:Joe’s first impressions of Tido & the beginning of their relationship (2:28)The story of their low point & working together on annual planning (5:32)What was agreed on in the annual planning session (7:44)Focusing on value drivers & building a trusting GTM partnership (10:55)Why it’s necessary to embrace tension in order to drive growth (15:01)Tido’s lessons learned leading eng product & sales @ Koala (16:05)Audience Q&A: Frameworks for narrowing down value drivers (19:00)The importance of cross-functional participation in planning sessions (22:21)An inside look at the exercise of identifying value drivers (24:02)How deep should salespeople go on the product? (26:27)How does annual planning change day-to-day operations for the year? (27:56)Describing the Lighthouse program (30:10)Reorganizing the org to meet the three identified value drivers (32:32)Engineering leadership’s involvement during the annual plan (35:24)Strategy behind building a platform (38:38)LINKS AND RESOURCESVideo version of this episodeMore sessions from ELC AnnualThis episode wouldn’t have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan’s also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/

We dissect leadership lessons from across vastly different scales of eng orgs – ranging from 13,000-people companies to 10-person start-ups – with Jeremy Burton, CEO @ Observe. He shares how he effectively translated leadership skills from working at large-scale orgs to small, early-stage start-ups & addresses challenges faced when scaling at any point. Jeremy covers start-up strategies for bringing your eng teams closer to your customers & driving innovation at large-scale orgs; characteristics of eng leaders that promote successful scaling; gaining & communicating conviction; driving community engagement & building trust within developer communities; and more.ABOUT JEREMY BURTONJeremy Burton is the chief executive officer of Observe, Inc. Prior to Observe, Jeremy was Executive Vice President, Marketing & Corporate Development of Dell Technologies, and served in various leadership roles at EMC prior to Dell. A 20-year veteran of the IT industry, Jeremy joined EMC from Serena Software, where he was President and CEO. Previous to Serena, he led Symantec’s $2 billion Enterprise Security product line as Group President of Security and Data Management. Jeremy also served as Veritas’ Executive Vice President of Data Management Group and Chief Marketing Officer. Earlier in his career, he spent nearly a decade at Oracle as Senior Vice President of Product and Services Marketing. Jeremy is currently a member of the board of directors at Snowflake, a seat he's held since 2015, and maintains a part-time role on the advisory board at McLaren Group."I hear so many times both in startups and bigger companies, 'Oh, we have a sales execution issue.' If your early sales team is not successful, it's never the sales team. It's always the product. Where bigger companies have built new products, they've probably taken it to market too soon and the salespeople will take it to a mature account. It won't be as mature as the other products. The customer will complain and the salespeople will hate it. It'll get a bad name and then it'll get killed. That's the typical mode of operation that I've seen in a large company, which is why you got to keep it a secret until you've got the MVP, then work with a small set of customers and set the right expectation. When you get it right, you've immediately got a distribution channel that you can scale. If you get it wrong, you'll never scale it and you'll just create a whole bunch of problems in your customer base.”- Jeremy Burton   We now have 10 local communities of engineering leaders hosting in-person meetups all over the world!Local communities are led by eng leaders just like you, who wanted to create a place to connect, share insights & tackle critical challenges in the job.New York City, Boston, Chicago, Seattle, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, London, Amsterdam, and Toronto in-person events are happening now!We’re launching local events all the time - get involved at elc.community!SHOW NOTES:Operating at a scale of 13,000 people vs. early stage with 10 (3:13)How Jeremy adapted to operating at vastly different scales (6:30)Transitioning from a back seat role to the front seat (8:32)Approaches to helping folks better operate in ambiguity & face the unknown (11:20)Cycles that gave Jeremy more confidence to operate in instability (14:26)The romanticization of start-ups & challenges with scaling (18:22)Why eng teams should work directly with customers at start-ups (21:14)Leveraging leadership at large orgs to bring eng teams closer to customers (24:36)Strategies for innovation at large-scale orgs (27:38)Dynamics at big companies that incentivize killing new projects (30:38)Characters of eng leaders that lead to successful scaling / innovation (32:56)Recommendations for gaining conviction & communicating that effectively (34:33)Conversation frameworks for creating alignment (37:43)How to create influence & community engagement for developers (38:55)Gaining trust within your community & exuding authenticity (42:10)Rapid fire questions (44:42)This episode wouldn’t have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan’s also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/

We’re sharing a session from ELC Annual 2023 – Thuan Pham (Board Director, Advisor, former CTO of Uber & Coupang) shares pivotal moments from his life, leadership journey & career with Li Fan (CTO @ Circle). Thuan shares his best leadership lessons & strategies for scaling during hypergrowth from his time at Uber and how those skills impacted him in roles since then. He shares stories about working at Uber – including both the highs & lows – and reflects on what could have been done differently or better. Thuan also shares advice on how to keep your eng org motivated during crisis; advice he would give his younger self; and skills that make a great eng leader today vs. 20 years ago. Thuan also shares stories from his upbringing and how his experience as a refugee & immigrant impacted him as an eng leader today.ABOUT THUAN PHAMThuan Pham served as Chief Technology Officer of Coupang from September 2020 until September 2022, and of Uber Technologies, Inc. from April 2013 to May 2020. From December 2004 to January 2013, Mr. Pham served in various Vice President roles at VMWare, Inc., a software and technology company, including as Vice President of R&D – Cloud Management Platform from June 2012 to January 2013.As an engineering leader, he is passionate about building talented, healthy, and motivated engineering organization and leading it to accomplish extraordinary things. He cares deeply about organizational health and principled leadership and believes these are the greatest drivers for any team to harness its maximum potential.Mr. Pham holds both B.S. and M.S. degrees in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Thuan's work and career contributions as an American immigrant were recognized by the Carnegie Foundation among its list of "2016 Great Immigrants: The Pride of America" honorees.ABOUT LI FANLi Fan is CTO at Circle, a global fin-tech firm enabling business to harness the power of digital currencies and public blockchains (Circle is the principle operator of USD Coin). Prior to Circle, Li was CTO at Lime, an innovative technology company that connects and empowers urban living through mobility.Before Lime, Li was SVP of engineering at Pinterest leading all 600+ engineers to execute technology strategy and deliver company priorities. Li was a Senior Director of Engineering in Google, accountable for Google’s popular image search and was Vice President of Engineering at Baidu.We now have 10 local communities of engineering leaders hosting in-person meetups all over the world!Local communities are led by eng leaders just like you, who wanted to create a place to connect, share insights & tackle critical challenges in the job.New York City, Boston, Chicago, Seattle, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, London, Amsterdam, and Toronto in-person events are happening now!We’re launching local events all the time - get involved at elc.community!SHOW NOTES:Thuan’s immigrant / refugee background & its impact on him (2:19)The experience of resetting & starting from nothing as an eng leader (4:23)Pivotal moments during Thuan’s seven years @ Uber (6:59)How Thuan provided hands-on mentorship & teaching leading the eng org (8:21)Challenges faced & lessons learned through hypergrowth at scale (11:29)Scaling infrastructure / processes while scaling talent (13:44)What caused Thuan to stay with Uber & eventually lead him to leave (17:14)Ways in which Uber could have done better (19:48)Thuan’s reflections on what he could have done to change the situation (23:14)How & why Thuan transitioned from Uber to Coupang (26:01)Reflections on what makes a great eng leader 20 years ago & today (29:49)Audience Q&A: What are Thuan’s current motivations & goals? (34:56)Keeping your engineers motivated during times of crisis (36:53)Advice Thuan would give his younger self (38:42)Qualities of a great VP of Engineering & exec team (41:30)LINKS AND RESOURCESAll of the Sessions from ELC AnnualThis episode wouldn’t have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan’s also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/

In today’s episode, we’re resharing Dheeraj Pandey’s popular session from ELC Annual 2023 on the disciplined pursuit of less! As the Co-Founder, CEO & Chairman of DevRev.ai, he shares how AI tools can maximize customer impact & reduce information asymmetry between various teams, including eng, customer support, product, sales, etc., ultimately creating a more customer-centric mindset. He reveals how to leverage AI to tackle “verbs,” such as classifying, routing, attributing, summarizing and more, further streamlining productivity and empowering your org to focus on customer needs.ABOUT DHEERAJ PANDEYDheeraj Pandey is the co-founder & CEO of DevRev.ai, one of the hottest startups in Silicon Valley, with over 70 million dollars in seed funding.He previously founded Nutanix (Nasdaq: NTNX), a global leader in enterprise cloud software and hyperconverged infrastructure solutions, and currently sits on the board of Adobe (Nasdaq: ADBE) and is a member of their Audit Committee.Dheeraj co-founded Nutanix in 2009 and led as its CEO and Chairman for 11+ years. Boasting the largest software IPO in 2016, Nutanix is now a multi-billion dollar company with thousands of employees in over 60 countries. Pandey has been recognized with prestigious industry awards, including Dell's Founders 50 and the E&Y Entrepreneur of the Year, Silicon Valley.Before founding Nutanix, Pandey was the VP of engineering at Aster Data (now Teradata). His technology and enterprise software experience include engineering and leadership roles at Oracle, Zambeel and Trilogy Software. Pandey has been recognized with several prestigious industry awards, including Dell's Founders 50 and the E&Y Entrepreneur of the Year, Silicon Valley. Pandey holds a degree in Computer Science from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur,  and an M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Texas at Austin. In addition, he was a Graduate Fellow of Computer Science at the University of Texas at Austin Ph.D. program."In my last company, we had brought almost 7,000 employees together. My biggest job was to really bring all the VPs together. What does it mean for them to work together, behave well together, and respect each other? And it's all because there were all these silos of departments. If you look at the power of AI, AI knows no boundaries. If anything, it needs the entire knowledge graph and the knowledge graph of customers and product and people and their work, not just people on the inside, but also users and their activities on the outside. That's a big problem that we all have to go and solve for.”- Dheeraj Pandey   This episode is brought to you by testRigor!testRigor is trusted by tens of thousands of companies across the globe, including Netflix, Splunk, BusinessWire, and more to solve three main problems with end-to-end test automation:It’s challenging, expensive, and slow to hire QA Automation EngineersLow productivity building your own QA AutomationFragile tests, that cause maintenance to consume enormous amounts of timetestRigor solves all of the above by allowing our users to express test cases in plain EnglishTo learn more, check out a case study on testRigor hereSign up for a free trial today at testrigor.comSHOW NOTES:The role of essentialism in software dev & company building (1:52)Dheeraj’s experience fostering a customer-centric approach in all teams (4:22)Commonly used tools & why they fall short for full eng functions (7:20)Why it’s important to connect AI, analytics & collaboration features (10:15)How AI can help solve information asymmetry (13:12)Using AI for analytics to help make teams more customer-centric (15:14)Audience Q&As: A day in the life of a PM using LLMs in an interactive discussion (18:03)Tips for educating users to provide better prompts when using GenAI (22:50)How would a company typically use the DevRev product? (24:38)DevRev’s object model of support (27:21)Is DevRev capable of answering arbitrary questions once data is uploaded? (28:36)Methods used to measure performance w/ DevRev (30:02)Creating multiple namespaces w/in the same index to host multi-tenant data (31:10)Qualitative & quantitative benefits DevRev offers to its customer base (33:39)LINKS AND RESOURCESVideo Version of EpisodeAll of the Sessions from ELC AnnualThis episode wouldn’t have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan’s also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/

In this episode, we chat with Lake Dai (Founder & Managing Partner @ Sancus Ventures), who shares her career story & how to harness AI technology in a way that is both effective & compassionate. We cover the concept of “co-parenting AI”; why ethics in AI is non-negotiable; and how to create compassionate AI. Lake also reveals how she became a veteran at serving on boards & why it is something she is passionate about. We dissect ways current eng leaders who are interested in board service can gain the right experiences & demonstrate their value as a potential board member.ABOUT LAKE DAILake Dai is Founder and Managing Partner of Sancus Ventures, a VC firm focused on pre-seed to seed stage companies, investing in the next generation of software infrastructure for applications, such as distributed computing, AI model management, platform scalability, data privacy & safety, cybersecurity and more.Lake has been an Adjunct Professor of Applied AI at Carnegie Mellon University since 2016. She was a keynote speaker on AI ethics, data privacy, real-world applications, and AI education topics at the UN, UK Parliament, California State, and leading tech conferences such as the MIT conference and VentureBeat."Students ask, 'Why do I have to study AI ethics? Why can't I just jump into how do I build this model?' If you imagine AI as a very powerful tool, there is no difference between teaching building AI tools from teaching people how to use a weapon. If you ever take any weapon training classes, the first thing people teach you is safety, which is really understanding how the weapon works and how much impact both on the positive and negative side to people surround you. That part is missing for a lot of AI technical training these days.”- Lake Dai   This episode is brought to you by testRigor!testRigor is trusted by tens of thousands of companies across the globe, including Netflix, Splunk, BusinessWire, and more to solve three main problems with end-to-end test automation:It’s challenging, expensive, and slow to hire QA Automation EngineersLow productivity building your own QA AutomationFragile tests, that cause maintenance to consume enormous amounts of timetestRigor solves all of the above by allowing our users to express test cases in plain EnglishTo learn more, check out a case study on testRigor hereSign up for a free trial today at testrigor.comSHOW NOTES:Why VC fundraising is set to thrive in 2024 & beyond (2:14)Eng leaders should focus on AI ethics (6:09)The importance of starting with a safety check before implementing technology (8:14)Lake’s recommendations for eng leaders to guide current & future AI dev (9:46)Third-party involvement with internal building processes (12:22)Strategies for helping engineers address AI dev in a mid or late-stage roadmap (14:06)The concept of co-parenting AI & its implication for eng leaders (15:40)Benevolent AI & feeding AI compassion information / data (18:50)How to harness AI to address societal challenges & create positive outcomes (22:42)Examples of AI addressing climate change & education-related issues (24:44)Three reasons why Lake is passionate about serving on boards (28:33)The positive impact of serving as a board member (31:40)How to gain the right experience & demonstrate value to get on a board (33:21)Why it’s important to let others know you’re looking for a board role (35:17)Rapid fire questions (40:51)LINKS AND RESOURCESOutlive: The Science and Art of Longevity - Wouldn’t you like to live longer? And better? In this operating manual for longevity, Dr. Peter Attia draws on the latest science to deliver innovative nutritional interventions, techniques for optimizing exercise and sleep, and tools for addressing emotional and mental health.The All-In Podcast - Chamath Palihapitiya, Jason Calacanis, David Sacks, and David Friedberg cover all things economic, tech, political, social, and poker.This episode wouldn’t have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan’s also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/

In this episode, we’re resharing one of the most popular & exciting sessions from ELC Annual 2023, featuring a panel of experts discussing what software dev will look like in the decades to come! This conversation features Tara Hernandez, VP Developer Productivity @ MongoDB; Erik Meijer, Sr. Director of Engineering @ Meta; and Jocelyn Goldfein, Managing Director @ Zetta Venture Partners. They debate & dissect how AI is changing what software dev looks like, what capabilities future eng leaders will need to build upon, where AI technology will need to improve moving forward, and more.ABOUT TARA HERNANDEZTara Hernandez has spent nearly thirty years evolving ways for companies to develop and ship software. She helped launch Mozilla.org and has been a firm proponent of open source ever since. She also thinks smart companies understand the business value of having a diverse employee base. Tara currently works at MongoDB, is a member of the board for Women Who Code, and a member of the Continuous Delivery Foundation."What was so amazing about Da Vinci? Da Vinci was an artist, he was a painter, he was a sculptor, he was an engineer. Breadth, more than depth, is increasingly going to be critical.”- Tara Hernandez   ABOUT ERIK MEIJERErik Meijer is a Dutch Computer Scientist, entrepreneur, and AI enthusiast.In his long career, he has democratized many academic concepts such as functional programming, reactive programming, and language-integrated query by introducing these concepts into mainstream languages such as C#, Visual Basic, Dart, and Hack, as well as through his startup Apllied Duality Inc.As an educator, Erik has shared his knowledge through platforms like Channel 9, Coursera, and edX, enlightening learners worldwide with his courses on reactive and functional programming.As the founder of the Probability team at Meta in 2016, he is one of the pioneers in applying AI to programmer productivity and systems efficiency.Most recently, Erik is working on providing every knowledge worker with a personal assistant that supercharges their productivity and boosts job satisfaction."I think the engineer of the future will be more like an English major or a music major. Somebody that can really explain their thoughts very well. If you have kids, I would not send them to do computer science. Send them to a liberal arts.”- Erik Meijer   ABOUT JOCELYN GOLDFEINJocelyn Goldfein (@jgoldfein) is a Managing Director at Zetta Venture Partners, where she invests seed capital in AI-native startups with B2B business models.Jocelyn is a widely recognized industry expert on product strategy, infrastructure, and organizational scale. Her career as an engineering leader spans from early-stage startups to high-growth years at Facebook and VMware.During her tenure at Facebook, she helped convert News Feed to Machine Learning and spearheaded the transition to a ‘mobile first' product organization. As an early engineer at VMware, she built core virtualization technology and ultimately created and led VMware’s Desktop Business Unit. Jocelyn also held engineering and leadership roles at startups Datify, MessageOne, and Trilogy/pcOrder.Jocelyn has a passion for STEM Education. She currently lectures at Stanford University where she received her BS in Computer Science."Part of me finds it almost insane to think about what if there's never a new programming language? What if we're at the end of history for new programming languages and the next and last programming language is Hindi?”- Jocelyn Goldfein   This episode is brought to you by testRigor!testRigor is trusted by tens of thousands of companies across the globe, including Netflix, Splunk, BusinessWire, and more to solve three main problems with end-to-end test automation:It’s challenging, expensive, and slow to hire QA Automation EngineersLow productivity building your own QA AutomationFragile tests, that cause maintenance to consume enormous amounts of timetestRigor solves all of the above by allowing our users to express test cases in plain EnglishTo learn more, check out a case study on testRigor hereSign up for a free trial today at testrigor.comSHOW NOTES:Introducing Jocelyn, Tara, and Erik & their interest in the future of software dev (2:31)Ensuring AI accuracy / confidence as a key inflection point (5:06)What the next generation of building software will look like (7:09)Why engineers will always be needed for understanding machine capabilities (10:51)Erik & Tara’s perspectives on the future of AI & engineer interaction in software dev (13:19)Great engineers of the future need to have well-rounded skills (16:38)Why flow will (or will not) be as necessary in the future (19:06)How AI will augment human creativity & the engineering role (21:06)Will AI replace the need for cross-collaborative teams? (23:30)Jocelyn’s theory that today’s best QA folks will be the best engineers in 2033 (26:14)Audience Q&A: What logical & cognitive skills will still be needed as AI progresses? (28:24)Challenging the current definition of software development (31:45)What is the potential for a future dialogue system? (34:17)Will the change in eng skills also impact other degrees like mathematics? (36:46)How will the industry navigate workforce loss as AI replaces certain roles? (38:01)LINKS AND RESOURCESVideo Version of EpisodeAll of the Sessions from ELC AnnualThis episode wouldn’t have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan’s also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/